


Mottled Roses

by auroraphilealis (thousandrosepetals)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: AU, Happy Ending, High School AU, M/M, magical roses au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 14:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11465802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thousandrosepetals/pseuds/auroraphilealis
Summary: Dan lives in a world where, when someone starts losing friendship, interest, or love for you, a rose magically appears on your bedside table, and you have one last chance to try and fix things before the last petal falls. His best friend Phil promised that Dan would never receive a rose from Phil, but one morning… Dan does.Happy Ending





	Mottled Roses

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @botanistlester who let me have the prompt someone gave her. I ended up doing this in a big of a different style than I normally would, but I hope you guys still like it :)) ([Prompt](http://snowbunnylester.tumblr.com/post/162809124903/hey-what-about-an-au-where-person-a-receives-a))

The morning Dan Howell receives a yellow rose on his bedside table is the morning that everything starts to fall apart.

For all intents and purposes, nothing is any different. Dan’s alarm goes off for school, and he startles awake from where he’d fallen asleep on his textbooks the night before, doing his damndest to study for a levels. The sound of his parents and his brother laughing over breakfast penetrates his disoriented mind, and he gets up on unsteady feet to to turn off his alarm clock.

That’s when he sees it - the fated yellow rose.

It’s not even all that unusual, at first. Receiving magical roses from time to time is not only normal, but _expected_. In fact, Dan takes one look at the yellow rose, and shrugs good naturedly, because he knows exactly what it means, and exactly why it’s come.

He’s been receiving yellow roses all year long, and he hasn’t done a damn thing about it, because there’s nothing to _be_ done.

He and his classmates are months away from summer hols, months away from running off to Uni, and likely, never seeing each other again. They’re _all_ receiving yellow roses, magical notices that a friendship is beginning to wither and wilt away. It’s to be expected, for this time in their lives, and so Dan doesn’t even blink an eye as he shuts off his alarm, and turns away to start getting ready for school.

He can hear his mum shouting up the stairs for him to join them soon or he’s going to be late, and he scrambles to tug his jeans on even as his vision swims in front of him from lack of sleep. The yellow rose is not forgotten, but it doesn’t haunt Dan the way it might have someone else.

In the last week alone he’s woken up to two yellow roses, both of which he’s moved to a special place on his bookshelf where he keeps them safe for as long as he can. Throughout the year, he’s received a grand total of two other yellow roses, and a pink rose that Dan is never going to know the soul of.

They symbolize hope, and loss, flowers sent from some mystical force that many have tried, and failed, to study in the past. It’s a subject in their history classes, something Dan’s gone over time and time again, and never fully understood, but accepted as just another normal part of life.

Receiving a rose can mean a lot of things. Depending on the color, it denotes the feeling of the soul it’s been taken from towards the receiver. Yellow is for friendship, pink for feelings of romantic interest, and red for those in love. Receiving a rose, however… is not a positive interaction. It means that the soul’s feelings towards the receiver are diminishing.

Dan’s seen friends in the past gain yellow roses stained with pink, their petals falling away one by one as the soul of the rose begins to pull away from the receiver, all without the receiver having any idea of who it actually is. He’s seen friends receive pink roses, sometimes red, and watched as girlfriends and boyfriends fell apart, watched as significant others tried their best to fix whatever was wrong and make the rose stop losing petals, only for the last petal to drop, and for it all to come to an end.

It’s just another fact of life, and while Dan never wants to see the day where he has to watch as a rose of his loved one slowly dwindles away to nothing after a harsh break-up or the loss of a partner, he is used to watching his friendships decay away into nothing. It’s just how things go.

It’s not as if there is no way to prevent it, either. Dan’s seen plenty of people save the rose from losing another petal, slowly working their way back up to whole, and pristine, until it disappears all together just as quickly as ones that have lost all their petals, it’s just… well…

Dan’s only ever received eight roses in his entire life, none of which he’s even attempted to save.

The first was a yellow rose in primary school, just after a nasty fight with a friend from class. Dan had taken one look at it and instantly burst into tears, terrified despite knowing what it meant because he’d never had one before. He’d made one attempt to fix the broken relationship with the friend and been shunned so thoroughly he’d not tried again, and watched with wet cheeks as the poor tiny thing had dwindled away to nothing in just a few short days.

The second had also been yellow, a few weeks after another friend moved away the summer he turned twelve. He’d been horrified, at first, scared he’d messed something up with someone, and had gone around asking all of his friends if they were mad at him. It had taken him until October, when the last petal had fallen, to realize who it had belonged to, and frowned as he realized why all of his letters had gone unanswered for so long.

The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth had all happened much more recently, as the end of a levels approached and he and his small circle of friends stopped hanging out as much, too busy with their own lives and recognizing that soon, they’d all be at different Uni’s anyway. Dan had taken good care of those roses, but he’d had no time to mend the friendships, until they, two, were gone.

The pink rose had been nothing special, an admirer Dan hadn’t even known he’d had, and would never know he’d had if it weren’t for the rose, and the last… well, it was sitting on his bedside table waiting for Dan to pick it up.

He doesn’t. He’s going to be late for class as it was.

He has a few friends left in mind that the rose might belong to, after all, all of whom have already received acceptance letters to Uni, who he knew one day or another he was going to get a rose from _anyway_ , so he pushes the thought from his mind and promises himself he’ll give them a proper goodbye at graduation.

**

Dan only has one best friend.

He’s known Phil Lester since he was in primary school, and they’ve been through everything together. Dan can even remember the time he’d broken his leg while Phil was visiting his grandparents on the Isle of Man, and the minute he’d caught word of Dan being in the hospital, he’d headed straight home.

Of course, it had taken more than a day to convince his grandparents to let him leave in the first place, and he’d been pretty late showing up at midnight on Dan’s doorstep long after he’d gotten his cast, but Dan’s parents had been gracious enough to let Phil in anyway, and the two had had a nice, happy sleepover while Phil drew cruddy pictures all over the plaster that had then encased Dan’s leg.

It had been one of the defining moments for Dan of where his true feelings lay. In fact, Dan’s pretty sure if Phil ever received a rose from Dan, it would be pink, but he’s never told his best friend his feelings, and for good reason.

He’s scared. He’s scared of receiving Phil’s yellow rose and watching the most important friendship he’s ever had crumble away to nothing in the palm of his hands, afraid of what they’ve built together disappearing just as quickly and surely as every other rose Dan has ever received in his life.

He doesn’t know how to save a rose, only that it can be done, and he’s terrified that one day, he’s going to fuck up everything he’s ever had with Phil and never be able to spend the afternoon with him again. It’s been hard enough with a levels lately, hard enough to see his best friend outside of school, but Dan has never been afraid of getting a yellow rose from Phil.

At least, right up until he shows up to homeroom that morning and immediately finds that Phil is nowhere near where he usually sits, right next to Dan in the middle of the room near the front so they can at least try and focus on class for once. Instead, Phil is sat in the back, to the far left, and all of the seats immediately surrounding him are… filled.

Something heavy lodges itself in Dan’s throat as he stares at his best friend, begging him to just _look up_ and _explain_ , but Phil never does. If Dan didn’t know any better, he’d even say Phil was avoiding his gaze.

Dan bites his lip, because he can’t seem to help remembering the yellow rose that appeared on his bedside table just that morning. As he heads to his own, usual seat, half hoping the teacher will clear their throat and direct Dan to some kind of seating chart that will explain this _whole_ thing, he feels tears beginning to prick at his eyes because not Phil, please not Phil too.

He promised. He promised that he would never let Dan get a rose because of him, that they’d still be friends even after they’d run off to Uni… Phil promised, and Phil never broke a promise.

Dan begs himself to relax, promises himself he’ll talk to Phil later, and tries to tune into their teacher's voice as the bell goes for class.

Only, Phil’s not at lunch either. It’s not completely unusual. Sometimes, he skips the meal and studies in the library instead. Sometimes, Dan does too, and sometimes, Dan joins him.

The problem is, when Dan leaves his meal behind with one of their other friends, Chris, and heads into the well loved room he’s spent far too much time in this year, he doesn’t find Phil there either. He’s nowhere to be found, not even in his favorite aisle with his back propped up against a bookshelf, and a good fantasy novel in his lap.

He’s not at the study tables, nor is he in the back corner by the windows, and Dan can’t find him by the computers either. He’s nowhere, and Dan sits down miserably at one of the empty study tables to press his face into his hands and take a few deep breaths, because Phil _promised_ , he promised and he’s never broken a promise to Dan before.

There’s been enough times in the last nine years of their lives for broken promises, too, but Phil has always pulled through.

Why would he stop now?

The thoughts haunt Dan like no other, the memory of the forgotten yellow rose on his bedside table like a stain on the backs of his eyelids. He hasn’t been this affected by receiving a magical rose in a long, long time, and he doesn’t know what to do with the sweat pooling in his palms, or the nausea in his stomach.

It can’t be Phil’s rose, and yet all the signs are there. Phil’s been avoiding him, fracturing the very structure of their friendship from the foundation up, and Dan know’s that if it _is_ Phil’s rose, it’ll take more than a few months for it wilt properly away. Yet, the fact that it’s there at _all_ is proof enough that if it is from Phil’s soul, he _want’s_ to end their friendship, and that is just not something that Dan can deal with right now.

He presses the heels of his palms more firmly against his eyeballs, and groans softly against his own skin. He hasn’t had anything to eat yet today, but the wasps that have made home of his stomach have filled him up anyway.

**

Dan doesn’t see Phil after school either. If it weren’t for the one small glimpse of Phil Dan had seen in the one class they shared that morning, he might even have just thought that Phil had skipped out on school for the day. Only, Dan did see Phil that morning, and the two had been walking him together since they were ten years old, so when Phil doesn’t show up at their usual meeting spot thirty minutes after class, the realization that Phil - Dan’s _best friend_ Phil - might be the soul of the rose, finally begins to set in.

It’s like being struck by a truck. Dan can feel it like a sucker punch to his stomach, and he wants to cry as his shoulders wilt and he continues to stare at the front doors of the school, begging Phil to come running out, late, with his backpack bouncing against his back.

He doesn’t, and somehow, Dan’s not surprised. He can feel a tugging on his heart, and _i-told-you-so_ in his head that doesn’t make sense, because Dan hadn’t _known_. He’d never, ever expected that rose to belong to Phil, and he’d rather take anything than have to deal with the recognition that Phil, _his_ Phil, would rather lose their friendship then try and stay together when school comes to an end.

Dan had been looking forward to hols, getting back to sleepovers and game nights and far too much time down by the lake. He’d been looking forward to letters during uni, of endless hours of skype calls and his best friend right then and there to help him when he inevitably crashed doing his law degree. He’d been looking forward to Phil picking him the broken pieces of his shattered heart the next time it happened, because he’d always been there, and now - now, he just isn’t.

Dan sniffles as he finally turns his back on the looming walls of their school, and begins to trudge home. He can practically feel Phil’s gaze piercing his back, waiting for Dan to be gone, far enough away that Phil can feel safe to head home too.

They’ve never even fought. Not really. Phil has never avoided Dan before, so this… this feels like every bad thing that has ever happened to Dan all combined into one, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself other than let the tears fall.

The walk home seems to take… forever.

Without Phil by his side, Dan has nothing to distract himself with, and suddenly, it feels like he lives far further from school than he’d ever realized before. Dan shifts his backpack up on his shoulders, and sighs as he realizes that if this continues on, then this will be what going home will feel like from now on until Uni.

Dan can’t stand the thought. It makes his eyes well up with tears all over again, and he starts to feel the anger brewing in his stomach. How could Phil do this to him? How could Phil break his promise to Dan, for the first time in their entire lives? How could Phil leave him to nothing, when Phil knows that he’s all Dan’s got?

By the time Dan gets home, he’s ready to fight. He’s never brought a rose back from certain death, but he knows that he _can_ , and when it matters most, he knows that he _will_.

Phil means more to Dan than anything in the world, and if he wasn’t willing to lose his best friend over something as simple as a crush, what makes Phil think he’s going to be willing to lose him over something as stupid as a few years at different Uni’s, a fact Dan’s not even _certain_ will be a fact in the end. Neither male has been accepted to anywhere just yet, still holding out for emails from prospective schools, and Dan’s had his fingers crossed since day one that he’ll manage York with his best friend.

There’s still hope left, so to find out that Phil has already thrown in the towel makes Dan want to rip his own heart out.

He’s not ready to give up.

No one’s home by the time Dan pushes open the front door and drops his backpack by the front door. Normally, he’d take it straight to his bedroom to start his homework, but today. No, today, Dan wipes the tears away from his cheeks the best that he can, and heads upstairs with as brave a face as he can muster. He keeps thinking maybe, if he just doesn’t touch the rose, it might not be real, but he has to face it if he wants to save the friendship he’s tried so hard to maintain.

Dan’s not going to let anyone take Phil away from him, not even Phil himself.

Seeing the rose waiting innocently for him right where he found it that morning is… almost a cruel joke. It feels mocking, as Dan pushes his bedroom door open and stares at it for a few seconds, trying to work up the nerve to move forward and grasp is in his hands, feel the soft petals and the love for him that Phil had once held.

It’s still there, he knows it is, and yet it’s fading. Dan can see is now.

One lone petal lays wilted against the wood already, and that’s what does it for Dan.

Without missing another beat he rushes forward and cradles the wilting rose in his hands, a sob rising up in his throat all over again. It’s the moment that everything changes, and Dan remembers all that he had. It’s the moment reality hits him and he wonders if he really _can_ fix this, or if it’s all just a lost cause after all.

His fingers brush delicately over the soft, golden yellow petals that represent his best friends love for him, and he cries, silent, choked back sobs, as he stares at it and wishes that it weren’t here. Why did it have to arrive, why did Phil have to decide to leave him?

He promised, _he promised_!

Dan can feel his heart breaking when he turns the rose over in his hands, and that’s when he see’s it - one of the petals is completely orange, and the one next to is beginning to turn, too. There’s spots of something that almost looks red on the petal beside _that one_ , and a mottled something in the middle that such a dark yellow Dan can’t decide _what_ it is.

Dan’s fingers card over every last petal, looking for some kind of sign, some kind of _explanation_ , as his eyes go wide in confusion.

He’s never heard of such a thing. A flower turning _orange?_ That’s not possible, surely? Roses don’t just… _change_ once they arrive, they wilt, and disappear with the feelings of the one whose soul it represents, they don’t mottle colors that don’t even make any _sense_.

And yet, as Dan stares at the rose laying in his hand, he can’t help but to feel hope beginning to spark in his chest, because there’s _red_ , there’s actually _red_ , and does that mean - could that mean - ?

Dan gently places the rose down, and pulls out his phone, because there’s only one thing left to do.

Google.

**

It’s past midnight. Dan hasn’t done any studying for his a levels. His homework remains abandoned downstairs, and his parents had taken one look at the mottled rose on his bedside table slowly shedding petals far faster than it should be able, and had silently walked back out.

Dan’s been… laying in the quiet for at least three hours now. He’s long since gotten his answer from google, he just doesn’t know what to do about it.

Orange… the transition color from yellow to red, known to represent enthusiasm and desire. The receiving of a rose in transition from one color to another represents a soul fighting against their feelings for the receiver.

Dan doesn’t know what to do. He hasn’t touched the rose again since he put it down hours before, since he looked up on google what was happening, and realized that… Phil was running away from him.

Phil was running away from him because he couldn’t come to terms with his feelings for Dan.

Normally… that would have made Dan enthusiastic. The idea of his Phil, loving him _back_ , was everything. But Phil was running from it, and Dan didn’t know why, not really. Dan had pretended he didn’t have feelings for Phil for years, but Phil had never received a rose from Dan. Could it possibly mean that Phil didn’t want to be gay, that he wasn’t okay with it? Could it possibly mean… that he didn’t _want_ Dan, not really, not after all?

Dan doesn’t know, doesn’t know if the feelings were old and fading, or new and developing, or if Phil was slowly falling out of friendship and love with Dan. All he knew was that Phil didn’t want him, that Phil had tossed him aside despite it all, and it was killing him.

Slowly but surely, it was killing Dan.

There’s a strange sound. Dan tilts his head towards his window when he hears it again. It’s almost like a tapping, but not quite. It’s more sharp, more distressing, and it happens again, and again. Dan stares with a furrowed brow at his window for another long moment, before he realizes what the sound is.

Rocks. Someone is throwing rocks at his window.

Startled, Dan gets quickly out of bed, and peeks outside.

None other than Phil Lester is stood there waiting, staring up with such deep anguish on his face that Dan can do nothing more than answer him.

He doesn’t open his window, but Phil has seen him, and Dan has seen Phil, and they both know that Dan is headed outside. His fingers are shaking, and he can still see Phil’s rose, wilting and losing petals far too fast for Dan’s liking, but he leaves it behind as he rushes down the stairs with tears in his eyes and pushes out the front door to find Phil Lester, his only best friend, standing to greet him with open eyes.

It’s not just Dan’s imagination that Phil is crying as well, and he throws himself at his best friend because really, what else can he do?

He can feel his heart racing as he starts to sob, really letting go in Phil’s arm as Phil shushes and soothes him, crying into the top of Dan’s hair and stroking everywhere he can reach, long, lean arms wrapped tight around Dan. Dan can’t stop crying, and he’s yelling, he knows he is, screaming at Phil that he promised, he _promised_ , didn’t he promise it would never happen?

Phil tells him that he did, Phil tells him that he’s sorry, Phil cries and holds Dan tighter to his chest, and he tells him that he is so, so sorry, but that he was just so scared.

Dan just holds onto him tighter, because honestly, he was scared too, but now that Phil’s back in his arms again, Dan’s never going to let him go.

Phil is his.

**

Dan’s chest is heaving when Phil finally pulls dramatically away, grasping Dan’s face tight in his hands.

“I’m in love with you,” he says, eyes wide and tormented, so, so tormented, that Dan actually understands.

He smiles, a broken, tight lipped think full of heartbreak and mistrust, as he reaches up with one hand to thread his fingers through the back of Phils hair and drag him closer still.

“I’m in love with you too, you idiot,” he whispers back, and kisses Phil, greedy with it as his best friend gasps in surprise against his lips.

The moment is everything, and as Phil winds his arms around Dan’s waist and holds him still, Dan can’t help knowing that everything is going to be okay.

He can practically feel the rose just fade away...


End file.
